I wouldn't recommend formulating an opinion too early when listening to a new CD, which is exactly the mistake I was making during the opening blasts of "The Final Thrill", the first track off of Norwegian based Ram-Zet's new CD called Intra. The song begins with some serious heavy riffing, augmented with industrial style keyboard textures, after which you quickly become introduced to the evil, scratchy vocals of Zet, who also handles the guitar work as well. My first initial reaction was Ram-Zet was probably going to be another one of these one dimensional bands, chock full of great, heavy riffs, death style vocals but nothing else. Imagine my surprise then, when at approximately the 1 minute mark of this opening song, suddenly out of nowhere appears the lovely female voice of Sfinx. Her contrasting vocal style and clean delivery coupled with Zet's creates the perfect balance, one which yields some very rewarding results throughout the whole CD. Opposing vocal styles are not the only surprise however, as the band threw it's next curveball at me halfway through the second song "Left Behind As Pieces", with a middle section featuring a nice violin break, over which Sfinx lays down some haunting vocals before the track returns back to a heavier sound to close it out. The next two songs, "Enchanted" and "Ballet" are both musical epic's that demonstrate exactly how to successfully blend classical based influences with modern, heavy industrial sounds. "Peace" is a moody instrumental which features some nice acoustic and electric work from Zet. This song closes out the first half of the CD. The second half kicks things back up a notch with another great track "And Innocence", with its varying changes in tempos and mood. "Born", "Lullaby For The Dying" and the 9 minute "Closing A Memory" bring the disc to a resounding end that left me wanting more. Ram-Zet is blessed to have some very talented musicians who appear to have no creative boundaries. They took all the best elements of goth, classical and industrial / metal, threw them into the mix and came up something fresh and unique. I can easily see this making my top 10 list of 2005.

Track Listing1) The Final Thrill
2) Left Behind As Pieces
3) Enchanted
4) Ballet
5) Peace
6) And Innocence
7) Born
8) Lullaby For The Dying
9) Closing A Memory

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